Dr Thompson and the team at St Vincent’s Clinic / Kinghorn Cancer Centre Sydney have just published a world first study reporting outcomes of robotic surgery to remove the prostate, in men who experience recurrence of their cancer within the prostate after initial focal ablation therapy using Nanoknife (irreversible Electroporation).
The study proves that excellent outcomes are able to be achieved in terms of cancer cure, urinary control and recovery of erections for sexual function, with minimal complications.
This is a landmark finding, because previous studies of robotic prostate surgery by Dr Thompson and colleagues have found that the outcomes after other forms of focal ablation such as HIFU (high intensity focussed ultrasound) are quite poor in terms of cancer cure and urinary/ sexual function.
This may mean that nanoknife therapy can be used with more confidence as initial treatment for carefully selected men with prostate cancer, knowing that if the cancer recurs later it will still be possible to remove the prostate with good outcomes, which has been a major drawback for previous focal ablation technologies such as HIFU.
The full study is freely available at the link below:
https://bmcurol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12894-022-00978-w